


Three Hours to the Nearest Phone

by daenabenjen42



Category: The Pretender
Genre: Convoluted and Complicated (on purpose) Directions, Discovering New Things, Gen, Shakespearean Quotation Roullette Challenge Response, Vacations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 04:16:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7344514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daenabenjen42/pseuds/daenabenjen42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had no other reason but a woman's reason...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Hours to the Nearest Phone

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Still happily borrowing.  
> Notes: So… Hazel wanted some Pretender. I did my best. And, also a quote from the Shakespearean Quotation Roulette: #44 "I have no other reason but a woman's reason: I think him so because I think him so." -The Two Gentlemen of Verona (.23-24)

~*~*~*~*~

It was three hours to the nearest phone when she found him. Three hours from what she considered the start, if not the heart, of civilization. Three hours, all the way out to this cabin in the wilderness that looked, from the outside, about as inviting as the lower levels of The Centre and three times as decrepit.

Standing on the porch of the cabin, she almost spun on her heel and took off. Almost. She was stopped from doing so when Jarod opened the door to stare at her in amusement. "Well, hello. Were you going to knock?"

"No. I was going to leave. Quickly."

Jarod tilted his head in question, wondering at her tone. "Without even a talk?"

She stared at him, dumbfounded. "You left cryptic messages as clues! With taped-on magazine letters! And a poem about a lake!"

He glanced behind her at the lake in question, then looked straight at her again. "But you did figure it out. That's the important part."

She sobered, suddenly realizing that yelling at him wasn't going to solve anything. "Why did you want me to come out here?"

Laughing, Jarod ushered her inside and shut the door. "You needed a vacation. We all need a vacation."

"And you wanted to have a vacation with me? I've been trying to capture you for years!"

Jarod laughed again and went into the cabin's small kitchen, and she couldn't help but follow him. She was surprised when he handed her a coffee cup with a tea bag on the side, clear water inside radiating heat. "I only recently discovered what a vacation is. Seemed the right time to try having one. Is that so bad?"

Miss Parker stared at the cup in her hands for a moment, his words reaching her on a level she wasn't used to thinking of him on. She knew he'd been discovering things, seemingly little and insignificant, that other people took for granted, for a long time. Who was she to deny that he was right, and that it was a good idea? "Daddy will have a fit if he ever finds out, you know. And no... aside from the part where it's my duty to capture you, it's not so bad. Vacation?"

"Vacation," he agreed.

"What am I going to tell them?" she wondered as she put the tea bag in the water and watched it darken. "I can't very well say that I had you all to myself in a cabin by a lake three hours from the nearest phone, Ratboy."

Jarod smiled as she started to relax. "We have three days to think about that, Miss Parker."

"You can use my name, you know."

He stepped closer, took the cup from her hands, set it on the counter, and kissed her solidly. "I know." And then he said her name in ear, and she smiled into his shoulder.

No. She wasn't going to tell them anything. Not one thing. In three days, they'd retake the roles they usually had, do the cat-and-mouse game again and again, but for right now... Jarod was going to experience something he'd never had before: a vacation. For real. No cleaners. No sweepers... no reporting any of this to anyone but Sid. Especially not her father or Mr. Raines.

Unnoticed for a while on the countertop, her tea cooled.

Fini...


End file.
